She was midlaugh in a hell of a dress, her nose scrunched and her head tilted slightly toward Carter. So beautiful, joyous, with none of the shadows that haunted her in her eyes. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close, and his eyes were locked on hers in a look full of so much awe that I almost felt like I was intruding on something.

You are, dumbass.

But…I looked closer. There were no wings on any of the lieutenants. I sent up a little prayer that the wings in the truck were just a coincidence. Any kind of coincidence. I noted that the picture was taken two years ago December and minimized it.

“I’ll only look at a few more,” I mumbled, like it was any kind of excuse for what I was doing.

I clicked on the highlighted photos, and the first popped up full screen. It was the same truck, covered in mud in the middle of a field, and leaning against it was Morgan. Her head was tilted down, the brim of a maroon baseball cap covering her face, but I’d recognize those legs anywhere.

The next was a candid of Will wearing the same hat.

Next—shit. There was Morgan, her hair pulled back on one shoulder, pinning a set of shiny silver wings on his chest while he stood in his dress blues, looking stoically ahead.

Fuck. Those had to be the same wings on the truck’s visor.

Raking my hands over my hair, I let out a deep sigh. Then I closed out the social media page without looking at any of his posts and went back to the search, clicking on the news story listed second.

Local Pilot Killed in Afghanistan

The family of William Carter has confirmed the reports that he was killed this weekend in Afghanistan. Carter, an Enterprise High School alum turned West Point graduate, was serving his first tour overseas as a medevac pilot when he fell to small arms fire that followed a helicopter crash. Carter and his crew had been on a rescue mission for another downed aircraft.

According to a spokesman from his unit at Fort Campbell, Carter saved the lives of three other soldiers before his death, personally pulling four pilots from the cockpits of the dual crash, two of whom were already deceased. Going above and beyond the call of duty, and with blatant disregard for his own safety, Carter stood alone, discharging his weapon to protect the wounded soldiers, although he had been wounded in the crash himself. He was killed shielding the wounded men.

“I cannot put our grief into words at the loss of Lieutenant Carter,” Brigadier General Richard Donovan, the previous CG of Fort Rucker, told us by phone. “It doesn’t surprise me that he gave his life for others. That’s simply who he was.”

William Carter is survived by—